It participated in the first Army Air Forces attack on Occupied Europe before moving to North Africa, where it was disbanded on 1 October 1943.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the unit moved to Fort Dix Army Air Field, New Jersey[1] and flew antisubmarine patrols over the Atlantic coast.

[3] The squadron shipped to the European Theater from the Boston Port of Embarkation on 17 April 1942 with the first shipment of troops assigned to Eighth Air Force aboard the UK troopship Andes, arriving in the United Kingdom on 11 May.

Under Eighth Air Force the airmen flew British Douglas DB-7 Boston III light bomber,[1] receiving their aircraft and training from No.

[5][6] The Fourth of July raid had been specifically ordered by General "Hap" Arnold, commander of the AAF, and approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had promised British Prime Minister Winston Churchill American action against Germany by that date.

Arnold believed that the Fourth of July would be an ideal day for the AAF to open its strategic bombing campaign against the Nazis, but General Carl Spaatz, commander of Eighth Air Force, did not have any of his heavy bombardment groups ready for operational missions, and his only fighter unit, the 31st Fighter Group, was just beginning to familiarize itself with its Supermarine Spitfires.

Spaatz considered the mission a stunt triggered by pressure in the American press that believed the people of both the United States and Great Britain needed a psychological boost.

[9] The squadron mission was to provide air refueling to the bombers of its parent wing and other USAF units as directed, including support for tactical fighters during overseas deployments.

[12] Starting in 1960, one third of the squadron's aircraft were maintained on fifteen-minute alert, fully fueled and ready for combat to reduce vulnerability to a Soviet missile strike.

[10][18] The squadron was inactivated in 1971 along with its parent wing as part of a phaseout of B-52 units that had been announced by Robert S. McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, six years earlier.